Another Step in Recycling

I dread throwing the tops off of bottles and abhor throwing out whole empty plastic tubes like the one formerly filled with velocity face wash I just finally finished. So, my depressing empty tube of velocity spurred me into a frenzy of internet searches until I found these two websites:

AVEDA cap recycling
Origins tube recycling

So, sometime this week (possibly today if I make it) I will take a daring trip to that scary place some refer to as "The Mall"--bag of recycling in hand--and ask the ladies at the counter if they would be so kind to recycle an empty velocity bottle for me.

Simplification

Well, I moved over to Google Reader today because Bloglines is going to be shutting down. I realized in the switch that I only have 7 feed subscriptions (now 8) which made me happy. Though I still haven't kicked the habit of checking the internet multiple times a day I have substantially decreased the amount of time I spend at each sitting. Taking two minutes to check my email and facebook a couple times a day and my reader a couple times a week isn't bad. I'm still working on this though. It bothers me that I feel compelled to know if someone has sent me an email even though I know they haven't. I struggle with simplicity. I am thoroughly convinced that for all the simplifying I've done over the years I haven't made it very far. Other than a few minutes here and there on multitask I really haven't spent much recreational time on the computer recently. I'm pretty proud of that.

Life Changes

I promised another post when I had some time and here it is:

When I graduated from high school I had high hopes and dreams of bettering my life in large chunks... that never really happened, but over the last three years I have changed some little chunks. I think that I spent a good year purging my life of material possessions that I had owned for too long. Birthday cards from when I was five, old stuffed animals, broken toys that I “couldn't part with”, clothes that I never wore, you get the idea. When I found out that it was a real possibility to buy a house last fall I spent the next several months packing up everything that I owned into boxes. Eliminating what was left from the purge that I didn't need to carry with me to a new start.

I'm still purging and trying to let go of so many material possessions but I'm on my way. Life now has turned to focus on how I live. I want to live purposefully with every action that I take being a response to thought and decision. Some things I've wanted to do for a long time but haven't been able to living in a house that is not my own and some things I've found as new revelations.

Here are some of things that I've been trying to change in my life (mostly ways to live more simply or more environmentally beneficial ways):

• Not flushing the toilet so often – hopefully soon to be replaced with a low flush toilet
• Riding my bicycle as much as I can – someday to be replaced by selling my car and buying a moped
• Bought a push mower – And I've been using it and love it
• Trying to do bulk shopping – Someday maybe I'll be able to keep to once a month
• Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (recycling not just CRV) – I'm also trying not to buy things that are packaged to begin with
• Making my own garden/green house – I have visions of living on a half acre.... I also want a rain catching system.
• This includes composting – Never have to buy fertilizer, I've got my own
• Uninstalling all of my game applications – Maybe someday I'll even get rid of my console games
• Only getting on facebook/email once or twice a day – I'm getting close to giving them up as much as is practically
• Trying to eliminate hobbies (can't decide yet which ones to keep) – Maybe keep it to just a few...
• Quitting one of my jobs (the weekend one) – What's more important, time or money? Definitely time.

There is a little glimpse into what I'm up to right now. I'm happy that I can finally make changes that I believe in.

Simplicity

I'm trying to start off my "new" life on the right foot. When I say "new" what I mean is that I am buying a house and will be moving into it soon. When I say "the right foot" I mean a more simplistic and purposeful life. So I figured maybe I'd share some of my thoughts and cool webpages with you.

Tonights Activities (decided upon and done!)
Clean out my RSS feed
Clean out my email subscriptions
Do nothing more purposefully
Read a book

http://zenhabits.net/2007/06/how-to-drop-an-rss-feed-like-a-bad-habit/
http://zenhabits.net/2007/03/the-art-of-doing-nothing/

Been awhile

Laura reminded me I haven't posted for awhile.

Ashram was beautiful as always. I expected it to be really difficult to assume a leadership role at the camp that I have always been the follower. It's my last remaining area where I am not responsible, but I am now. And I think it was ok. The girls were really good and it was as if I didn't even have to worry about being a leader. I know that it sounds kind of corny, but God moves there. I don't know if it is because I open myself up, or the hundreds of prayers said throughout the whole year for that week, or both, but it is nonetheless.

I'm up at camp now. We had hailstorms with thunder, lightning, instant rivers, and of course rain when there wasn't hail. It is so good to be somewhere that I don't have to worry about money or the next thing or technology. I don't feel obligated to answer my phone (and can't most of the time anyway) and just feel unreachable. It's a nice feeling. Sometimes I wish I was a hermit, but that is a tangent. It's amazing to be with friends who you don't see very often but are still great friends with. Both at Ashram and here, it's amazing how you can just instantly fall right back into step. And besides Joy, Lamar, Ryan, and Mikey are all here (and others too).

I've ridden my bike and windsurfed and read books and played video games and eaten good food and stood in the rain and have realized again how much I enjoy having a simple life. When I am out of college I am going to try my hardest to have the simplest life I can.

I liked this

"I am in fact a Hobbit (in all but size)," wrote Tolkien to a correspondent in 1958. "I like gardens, trees and unmechanized farmlands; I smoke a pipe, and like good plain food (unrefrigerated) . . . I like, and even dare to wear these dull days, ornamental waistcoats. I am fond of mushrooms (out of a field); have a very simple sense of humour (which even my appreciative critics find tiresome); I go to bed late and get up late (when possible). I do not travel much."

I have been thinking of late that when I graduate I will give my computer to someone who needs it, and not own one anymore. I have thought about this a lot lately. No, this is not some rash I hate technology rampage. I have really seriously considered it. There is still such a thing as a post office, and you could still mail me. I might get rid of my cell phone and microwave too. I really hope that I do. I could handle going somewhere else and checking my email once a week, or once a month, or maybe not having it at all. And yet this is all so contradictory as I sit here and type this out using the technology I use all the time and simply can't get away from. Sometimes I wish that I was born in a different age. Maybe if I could choose, I would choose to live in a different land, a different world. It would be a very hard decision, but I think that I just might be able to make it.

Excerpts

"Here is a nettlesome policy question: Is it fair for those of us who live comfortably to impose our preferences on individuals in the developing world? Economists argue that it is not, though we do it all the time. When I read a story in the Sunday New York Times about South American villagers cutting down virgin rain forest and destroying rare ecosystems, I nearly knock over my Starbucks latte in surprise and disgust. But I am not they. My children are not starving or at risk of dying of malaria. If they were, and if chopping down a valuable wildlife habitat enabled me to afford to feed my family and buy a mosquito net, then I would sharpen my ax and start chopping. I wouldn't care how many butterflies or spotted weasels I killed. This is not to suggest that the environment in the developing world does not matter. It does. In fact, there are many examples of environmental degradation that will make poor countries even poorer in the long run. And obviously if the developed world were more generous, then Brazilian villager might not have to decide between destroying the rain forest and buying mosquito nets. The point here is more basic: It is simply bad economics to impose our preferences on individuals whose lives are much, much different."

~Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science~

The Stuff is Going

Well, with my ever growing desire to rid my life of needless material possessions I have successfully eliminated a lot. It has been an interesting trail to travel and one that has led me to another decisions that I'll talk about in a second. As I was going through boxes and boxes of things (which I am still doing) that I haven't seen for probably years it was all of those little things that hit me. The smell of the chapstick that I used when I was twelve, stuffed animals that haven't been seen in years, the little rings you get for 25 cents. And most of all the bracelets. I scrapped part of my life yesterday. Of probably close to thirty hemp bracelets, anklets, necklaces and rings, only two remain. An age is ending. Digging through the past can do interesting things to your brain. Good memories, bad memories. I found several random scraps of paper that brought back so much joy, and ones that filled my eyes with tears. Things have been saved and filed away, but much more has been set aside to give away.

Our house is nothing magnificent to look at, one story three bedrooms, two bathrooms, plus the room we built in the garage... but it is so much more than we need. We have been blessed so abundantly, and the way that I use that blessing has almost begun to sicken me. The decisions that I make daily to live my life materially have begun to weigh heavily on my heart. How do I justify spending twenty dollars to go have some fun when there are people who are starving, homeless, dieing? I am learning that if I am truly to believe what I do then my life must change, so it is starting. I don't know how far I will be carried, but the journey has begun, and it is only Christ who will carry me to my destination because I know that I could never make it there on my own.

So consequently if you are interested in getting me something for my birthday there are only two things that I want. The first is a lens for my camera which has been really hard for me to go ahead and decide that I am going to get it. I believe that probably my family will pay for most of it and I will end up paying for the rest, so if you want to help out with that you could send a couple dollars the way of my parents and let them know. Or additionally you could give this: A Gift of Hope

(If you already have gotten me something, or still want to that's ok)

On the Nature of Stuff

I really don’t like stuff, I really don’t like things, but what I really don’t like is that we have so many things that we put them away in boxes and forget that they exist, when so many other people could hold all of their belongings in one hand. Stuff really bugs me and yet, I don’t bother to get rid of any of it. So, today I am starting with clothes, and if I never get further than that, at least I got that far.

The Vision-Pete Greig

The Vision is Jesus
Obsessively
Dangerously
Undeniably
Jesus

The Vision is an army of young people
You see bones? I see an army
And they are free from materialism
They laugh at 9-5 little prisons
They could eat caviar on monday and crusts on tuesday
They wouldn't even notice

They know the meaning of the matrix; the way the west was won
They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations
They need no passport
People write their addresses in pencil, and wonder at their strange existence
They are free, yet they are slaves of the hurting, and dirty and dieing

What is the Vision?
The Vision is holiness that hurts the eyes
It makes children laugh, and adults angry
It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago, to reach for the stars
It scorns the good and strains for the best
It is dangeroulsly pure

Light flickers from every secret motive
Every private conversation
It loves people away from their suicide Leaps, their Satan games

This is an army that would lay down it's life for the cause
A million times a day its soldiers choose to lose,
That they might one day win
the great well done of faithfull sons and daughters

Such heros are as radical on monday morning as on Sunday night
They don't need fame from names
Instead the grin quietly upwards
And here the crowds chanting again and again
"Come on!"

And this is the sound of the underground
The whisper of history in the making
Foundations shaking, Revolutionaries dreaming once again
Mystery is scheeming in whispers
Conspiracy is breathing
This is the sound of the underground

And the army is disciplined
Young people who beat their bodies into submission
Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrad in arms
The tattoo on their back boast "for me to live is Christ, and to die is gain"
Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes
Winners, Martyrs, who can stop them?
Can hormones hold them back?
Can failure succeed?
Can feer scare them, or death kill them?

And a generation prays like a dieing man with graons beyond talking
With warrior cries, sulphiric tears, and with great barrow loads of laughter

Waiting
Watching
24-7-365

Whatever it takes they will give
Breaking the rules
Shaking mediocrity from it's cozy little hide
Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs
Laughing at labels, Fasting essentials
The advertisers cannot mold them
Holywood cannot hold them
Peer pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.
They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive, on the inside
On the outside they hardly care
They wear costumes to communicate, and to celebrate
But never to hide

Would they surrender their image? Or their popularity
They would lay down their very lives
Swap seats with the man on death row, guilty as hell
A throne for an electric chair
With blood and sweat and many tears
With sleepless nights and fruitless days

They pray as if it all depends on God
And live as if it all depends on them
Their DNA chooses Jesus
He Breathes out they breath in
Their subconscience sings

They had a blood transfusion with Jesus

Their words make demons scream in shopping malls
Don't you hear them coming?
Herald the wierdos, summon the losers and the freaks

Here come the freightened and forgoten, with fire in their eyes
They walk tall and trees applaued, Sky scrapers bow, Mountains are dwarfed
By these children of another dimmension
Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of eden

It will come to pass
It will com easily
It will come soon
How do I know?
Because this is the longing of creation itself
The groaning of the spirit
The very dream of God
My tomorrow is His today
My distant hope is his 3D
And my feeble whispered faithless prayer
Envokes a thunderous, resounding, bone shaking "Amen!"
From Countless Angels, from heros of the faith, from Christ himself
And He is the original dreamer
The ultimate winner
Guranteed

Let it Rain

I just got back from shopping with my dad, like twenty minutes ago. It was fun :-) I find it very amusing to watch all of those people waiting in lines, trying to be the first one there to get just the right thing. We went at 6 and bought some tools and sweaters and just had a good time. And it's raining too.

New (Old) Shoes

I bought a new pair of debate shoes yesterday. The shoes that lasted me for the first four years of my debate career have finally given the job over to a new pair. Different people buy different shoes for different reasons, but I really don't like buying shoes. New shoes are... well, new. They feel funny. Joy also got a new pair of shoes yesterday, so I get her old ones! I have had my Tennis Shoes for a couple years, and Joy had them for a while before that. I really really like them, but Joy insists that they have served their duty and that I should take her old ones. (more like just can't believe they don't really have a sole) Besides, they are Nike, we are against Nike.

New shoes are like a lot of new things. They don't really belong to you, they aren't yours. Yeah, sure you have paid the money to buy a pair of shoes (or whatever it is that you bought) but how can they be yours if they are still just like every other pair in the shoe store? They don't have you in them. You probably will never find another pair of shoes that are exactly like mine, because there is not another pair of shoes that have been through the same things mine have. I love my shoes... and I don't want to see them go.